I feel like a lot of loose ends are being tied up in my life lately. I don’t know whether to be relieved, or to be sad. Or whether to be wary of the future. Every time life comes to one of these pauses, one of these lacunae, it seems that everything goes to shit.

But I’m trying to be positive. Not psychotically optimistic, but realistic. The surest thing about luck is that it will change, and just because bad things have happened to me doesn’t mean that bad things will always happen to me.

We stride towards the future ever careful. But walk forward we must.

My roommate from med school got married today. (I seem to be going to a lot of weddings lately.) And I saw M again after a long time. I think the last time I saw her was two years ago, and we sort of lost touch after a rather strange and arduous several-day conversation back in February 2006 that I failed to document, and that I sometimes start pondering but then quickly stop because I already know without asking that there aren’t any answers, and what’s the point a year and a half out when the (putative) opportunity is long past?

But of course other moments creep into my mind, which I have to shake off, like that time I ended up drunk out of my mind at her sister’s apartment, and she made sure that I actually woke up in time to take call. Or when I talked her through an excruciating episode with her ex. Or when she talked me through a ridiculous journey from Chicago to L.A. that I did in four days.

We actually hung out quite a lot. Compatriots in the struggle of life. Of course, she has always seen me as a brother. Or at least an adopted cousin. That usually puts the nail in the coffin on these thoughts, but then she says things that make me do double-takes, and if I blink, the moment passes, and I’m left with this unsatisfying feeling of imagining the whole episode. It’s like jamais vu.

In any case, I’m here, she’s there with her boyfriend, and that’s that.

Life is too short as it is for regret, and I’ve been preparing myself for a lifetime of involuntary celibacy anyway. Besides, desire leads to suffering, and Buddha only knows that I’m ready to stop suffering.

What was classic is that as I pulled out of the parking garage, Lionel Richie popped up on my iPod, and ”The Only One” started playing. I really dig this song. It’s rooted deep in my psyche because my dad used to play his album over and over again until the cassette tape finally snapped, and it sort of rekindles a nostalgic feeling of “home.” Or something. If someone happens to turn on the Infinite Improbability Drive in my vicinity and somehow I end up getting married, this song is definitely going to be played somewhere. Or I’ll sing it to my bride in front of everyone. Or something sufficiently cheesy like that.